1. Field of the Invention
The field of art to which this invention relates is ultra high density disk storage. Specifically, this invention relates to a method for writing data to a material by manipulating long chain molecules on the material's surface.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the advent of scanning tunneling microscopes (STM) in the early 1980's, several methods have been developed to use the small scale processing capability of the STM for high density data storage. In these methods, atoms are manipulated to form bumps on a media surface, the bump forms a bit of information which is represented in a base two (binary) format (i.e., as a 1 or a 0). An example of such a use is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,327,625 to Clark et al. Although these methods have their advantages, such as high storage density, they are plagued by several disadvantages.
The main disadvantage of STM data storage is that the speed of writing and replication is prohibitively slow. Conventional magnetic and CD-ROM recording rates are approximately 10.sup.8 and 1.5.times.10.sup.6 bits/second respectively, while STM atom writing is less than 1 bit/second.
Additionally, writing at the atomic level is usually performed at very cold temperatures and in a vacuum. The equipment used to perform atomic scale writing is therefore very sophisticated and expensive. There are also disadvantages in reading the information written at the atomic level. Atomic scale resolution of the media surface is necessary to read the data. This also requires sophisticated and expensive equipment.
Lastly, the scanning probe processes of the prior art need to write onto single crystal surfaces. Materials of this type are expensive and greatly limit the process by requiring materials of this class.
For the above reasons, there is a need in the art for a high density method of writing to the surface of a material which does not suffer from the drawbacks associated with manipulation of atoms on that surface.